Styling the GDPR Compliance Links and Check Box

Overview

This article explains how to control the styling of the FastSpring terms of service and privacy policy links that are displayed to customers visiting Classic Commerce stores, as well as the associated acceptance check box that customers in some locations (such as the EU) must select in order to purchase.

About the GDPR Links and the Check Box

One of the benefits of FastSpring's service is that we take care of compliance with local regulations automatically. As the merchant and seller of record, FastSpring is the responsible party for all transactions we process.

In order to comply with the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), FastSpring has added a Terms of Service and Privacy Policy section to all Classic Commerce stores.

Customers in the EU and certain other locations who visit Classic Commerce stores will see new links to FastSpring's terms of service and privacy policy. They will be required to select a check box to indicate acceptance of FastSpring's terms of service and privacy policy before they can submit an order for processing.

Customers who are not in the EU or certain other locations will see the new section, but will not be required to indicate acceptance of the terms and policy.

FastSpring created the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy section using the custom field feature of your Classic Commerce store. Custom fields can be used for a variety of purposes, such as creating a survey for your customers to fill out during the checkout process, as illustrated here.

Existing custom fields were not affected, and you can still create additional custom fields as needed, but the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy section is not editable.

The following is an example of how the new section appears in a store that uses the default style with no modifications.

Controlling the Style of the Links and the Check Box

Who is Affected?

If you have never modified the appearance and styling of your store pages, you do not need to take any action to style the new compliance links and check box.

If you have modified your store's style template and your store already uses a custom field, it is very likely that you have already adjusted your store's style template to present the custom field with suitable styling, and you will not have to take any additional action to style the new compliance links and check box.

If you have modified your store's style template and have not previously used a custom field, the modified visual style of your store pages may differ to the default style of the custom field that will be presented to customers. In that case, you may want to update your store's style template to include styling for the custom field.

Note: If you currently use a custom field to display a link for your own terms of service, EULA, or privacy policy, and / or a check box to record customers' acceptance, you might want to consider removing those and presenting them directly on your web site, in order to prevent customer confusion.

How to Review and Adjust the Style of the GDPR Compliance Links and Check Box

To find out exactly how the terms of service and privacy policy section looks in your store, use the Store Testing links to preview your store. Proceed through an order process, making sure to select an EU country for the customer's order address (not just from the country selector).

The terms of service and privacy policy section will appear just above the Complete Order button, towards the end of the purchase process, as shown in the example above.

If style changes are needed, we recommend that you use the services of a web developer to adjust your store's style template. Your web developer can inspect the custom field elements in the store page preview to identify what changes should be made.

To make the changes, first download your custom style template by selecting Styles from the home menu, clicking the name of your style, and then clicking the download hyperlink for the zip file on the next page.It is a good idea to keep an unmodified backup copy of the style template in case you need to revert your changes. See our article XHTML Style Creation Tips for the basics of store style editing.

The new GDPR compliance section, containing a terms link, a privacy policy link, and in some cases an acceptance check box (for EU customers) will use the existing custom field functionality. Any custom styling you've done on custom fields will apply to the new section, too. While it's not possible to preview the actual section that will be deployed on April 27, you can see exactly how it will look - and then tweak the styling if need be - by adding a custom field to your store in test mode.

(But with an @ symbol instead of (at)). Or, if you have an email message from a customer about this already, you can also forward the message to that address. Our engineers will remove the customer's personally identifiable information from our records in accordance with our privacy policy, as required by GDPR.